WellBeing International WBI Studies Repository 5-2019 Attitudes Toward Animal Research and Experimentation: An Annotated Bibliography [2011-2019] Erich Yahner The Humane Society of the United States Follow this and additional works at: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/antbiblio Part of the Animal Experimentation and Research Commons, Animal Studies Commons, and the Other Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Yahner, Erich, "Attitudes Toward Animal Research and Experimentation: An Annotated Bibliography [2011-2019]" (2019). Anthrozoology. 1. https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/antbiblio/1 This material is brought to you for free and open access by WellBeing International. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DOCUMENT TYPE Annotated Bibliography SUBJECT Attitudes Toward Animal Research and Experimentation DATE(S) 2011-2019 CREATED BY Erich Yahner AFFILIATION The Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy Agell, L., Soria, V., & Carrió, M. (2015). Using role play to debate animal testing. Journal of Biological Education, 49(3), 309- 321. https://doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2014.943788 The use of animals in biomedical research is a socio-scientific issue in which decision-making is complicated. In this article, we describe an experience involving a role play activity performed during school visits to the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) to debate animal testing. Role playing games require students to defend different positions and permit participants to debate and reflect on their personal opinions. A total of 262 students from 15- to 30-years-old participated in the activity. The article presents an analysis of the students’ opinions on this topic before and after performing the activity. Our results show that students actively took part in debate and made use of the new information provided by the game, especially the legal aspects. In conclusion, the role play activity helped participants to create a more informed opinion, stimulated critical thinking and argumentation skills. We encourage science teachers to use role playing games to discuss socio-scientific issues. Beversdorf, D., & Adams, N. (2016). Attitudes Toward Animal Research Among Medical Students in the United States (S3. 006). Background: For the process of development of new treatments for patients, there are many steps necessary to establish safety, mechanism of action, and efficacy before the new treatment can be used clinically. One of these steps involves testing in animals. The attitude of medical professionals regarding this process is not known. Methods: We surveyed medical students in the United States that were members of the American Academy of Neurology regarding their attitudes towards animal research. Students were queried as to their agreement or disagreement with a set of 14 questions. Students were then presented an educational video regarding animals in research, and repeated the survey immediately following the viewing of the video. Results: 168 students completed the initial survey. Among respondents to the first survey, 4.8[percnt] agreed with the statement ‘Animal research cannot be justified and should be stopped’. 13.2[percnt] disagreed with the statement ‘New surgical procedures should be tested on animals before they are used on people’, and 7.2[percnt] disagreed with ‘New drugs should be tested on animals before they are used on people’. Those with previous research experience had a significantly more positive attitude towards animal research, but years in medical training, diet (vegetarian vs nonvegetarian), pet ownership, farming experience, and rural vs urban upbringing did not impact attitudes towards animal research. 108 students repeated the survey after the video. After viewing the video, t-tests showed that the group’s overall attitude changed to be significantly more positive toward animal research, with the responses above decreasing to 0.9[percnt], 2.8[percnt], and 0.9[percnt] for the aforementioned statements. Conclusions: This is the first study to examine attitudes towards animal research among medical students. These findings should be considered in the future of medical education curriculum development. Bressers, S., van den Elzen, H., Gräwe, C., van den Oetelaar, D., Postma, P. H. A., & Schoustra, S. K. (2019). Policy driven changes in animal research practices: mapping researchers’ attitudes towards animal-free innovations using the Netherlands as an example. Research integrity and peer review, 4(1), 8. HTML Background: Reducing the number of animals used in experiments has become a priority for the governments of many countries. For these reductions to occur, animal-free alternatives must be made more available and, crucially, must be embraced by researchers. Methods: We conducted an international online survey for academics in the field of animal science (N = 367) to explore researchers’ attitudes towards the implementation of animal-free innovations. Through this survey, we address three key questions. The first question is whether scientists who use animals in their research consider governmental goals for animal-free innovations achievable and whether they would support such goals. Secondly, responders were asked to rank the importance of ten roadblocks that could hamper the implementation of animal-free innovations. Finally, responders were asked whether they would migrate (either themselves or their research) if increased animal research regulations in their country of residence restricted their research. Results: While nearly half (40%) of the responders support governmental goals, the majority (71%) of researchers did not consider such goals achievable in their field within the near future. In terms of roadblocks for implementation of animal-free methods, ~ 80% of the responders considered ‘reliability’ as important, making it the most highly ranked roadblock. However, all other roadblocks were reported by most responders as somewhat important, suggesting that they must also be considered when addressing animal-free innovations. Importantly, a majority reported that they would consider migration to another country in response to a restrictive animal research policy. Thus, governments must consider the risk of researchers migrating to other institutes, states or countries, leading to a ‘brain- drain’ if policies are too strict or suitable animal-free alternatives are not available. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that development and implementation of animal-free innovations are hampered by multiple factors. We outline three pillars concerning education, governmental influence and data sharing, the implementation of which may help to overcome these roadblocks to animal-free innovations. Clemence, M., & Leaman, J. (2016). Public attitudes to animal research in 2016. Ipsos MORI: London, UK. PDF This report presents the findings of the 2016 survey into public awareness of, and attitudes towards, the use of animals in scientific research. This is the second wave of a tracker survey initially conducted in 2014, which was also conducted by Ipsos MORI. Both waves were conducted using Ipsos MORI’s face-to-face “Capibus” survey vehicle, allowing for greater robustness in crosswave comparisons. The 2014 survey was broadly based on a long-term trend survey running from 1999; however, in 2014 a qualitative analysis of this long-term survey was conducted and the questions were reviewed and updated to reflect the changed context from when first asked in 1999. This new survey was run alongside the previous survey wave in 2014 to check for comparability of results to measure the impact of the new wordings. The comparison showed that the rewording did not have a significant impact on question response, however as the questions were different, direct comparisons between pre-2014 data and this year’s results are not possible, and so have not been included. Cox, L., & Montrose, T. (2016). How do human-animal emotional relationships influence public perceptions of animal us e?. The Journal of Animal Ethics, 6(1), 44-53. PDF Human-animal emotional relationships have a complicated interplay with public perceptions of the morality of animal use. Humans may build emotional relationships with companion species. These species are not usually intensively farmed in the United Kingdom, but they may be utilized during animal experimentation. From a relational ethical standpoint, the public may therefore perceive animal experimentation as being less acceptable than intensive farming. This study aimed to determine whether human-animal emotional relationships affect public attitudes regarding use of animals in intensive farming and research. Responding to an online questionnaire, British citizens (N = 85) rated their agreement with 20 statements relating to their acceptance of intensive farming and animal experimentation, scientific research involving a given species (e.g., an animal which either is or is not typically associated with the companion context), killing free-living animals, and consuming animals existing within companion and farming contexts. Positive correlations were found between public acceptance of intensive farming and animal experimentation, such that acceptance of animal experimentation corresponded with acceptance of intensive farming practices. This finding disproved our theory that the British public may perceive animal experimentation as less acceptable